Ted Feitshans, a North Carolina Cooperative Extension specialist and lecturer in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at North Carolina State University, was elected president elect of the American Agricultural Law Association during the organization's annual meeting in October in Minneapolis.

Feitshans develops Extension educational programs on liability avoidance and risk management, estate planning and business succession, environmental compliance, and land use. He also conducts applied research on pesticide drift regulation and labeling, farmland preservation, water law and water quality.

He also served as part of a team that developed materials that are part of a Web-based tool that farmers may use to improve water quality on their land and make sure their farms comply with water quality regulations. The effort was part of a cooperative agreement between the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency National Agricultural Compliance Assistance Center.

Feitshans will assume the American Agricultural Law Association presidency at the association's next annual meeting in October 2009. He will serve a one-year term.

With more than 500 members, the American Agricultural Law Association is the only national professional organization focusing on the legal needs of the agricultural community. Crossing traditional barriers, it offers an independent forum for discussion of innovative and workable solutions to complex agricultural law problems by attorneys and others employed in the private sector, government and academia. Membership includes both attorneys and non-attorneys with an interest in agricultural law. Student participation in annual conferences is strongly encouraged through scholarships.

North Carolina Cooperative Extension is an educational agency supported by county governments, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and N.C. State and North Carolina A&T State universities. County agents, backed by specialists at the two land-grant universities, conduct educational programs related to agriculture and forestry, family and consumer sciences, 4-H, community and rural development and other issues.